Monday, October 22, 2012

All the time now, I’m starting to hear, "The president had complete
control of Congress for two years, and did everything he wanted." This
is such bullshit. First of all, no president has that much control over
senators. You really think Ben Nelson, whose state deplores Obama,
really feels that much pressure to be loyal to him?

But the bigger issue is, it’s just factually wrong. Democrats had a
"filibuster proof" majority in the senate for a very short period. It
took Al Franken seven months to get seated because of the recount
dispute, and by the time he was, Ted Kennedy was dying. So Democrats
really only had 60 senators from September 24, 2009, when Kennedy’s
replacement was named, until February 4th, 2010, when
Republican Scott Brown won the special election there. The senate was in
session for just 72 days over that period, so that’s how long Obama had
a real Democratic Congress -- 72 days, not two years.

One of the things that sucks is that Obama has never figured out a
way to blame Congress for blocking things, presumably out of fear that
it will make him appear weak. But how is he not running more against a
Congress with a serial killer approval rating? He’s literally three or
four times more popular than they are.

Because it's not like the movies. People don’t get shot and keep
coming at you. They get shot and instantly fall to the ground and
scream, "I'm fucking shot! You fucking shot me!!" And even if they do
come at you again, you have certain advantages: one, you're not shot in
the leg, and two, you've still got a gun with lots of bullets left in
it. Often that carries the day. Just saying.

But recently we had another example of a cop in America shooting to
kill because he felt vaguely threatened. Because the other guy had a
gun? No. Because the other guy had a knife? No.

The other guy was an 18-year-old college student with no clothes on.
And now he's dead. Yes, a campus police officer at the University of
South Alabama fatally shot a naked freshman.

At 1:23 a.m. on a Saturday, someone was banging on the window of the
police station. "When an officer exited the station to investigate, he
was confronted by a muscular, nude man who was acting erratically,"
according to a statement from the university.

The police say he "repeatedly rushed the toward the officer…in a threatening manner." Threatening with what, his hard-on?

Sounds like a college student drunk or on mushrooms thought it'd be
funny to mess with the campus police. Because campus police are one step
below mall cops.

From there the police statement goes on to describe how the officer
did everything by the book -- ordered the kid to halt, retreated, drew
his weapon, retreated, but the naked teen wouldn't stop, so he had no
choice but to shoot him in the chest and kill him. Yes, according to the
university, this cop did absolutely everything required to avoid a
lawsuit -- er, I mean, having to use deadly force.

Here's a statement issued
by LaToya Cantrell, who's running for New Orleans City Council, about
her husband, Jason Cantrell, who's a New Orleans city prosecutor. See if
you can guess what Jason did:

“I absolutely do not condone his actions. I love my husband
unconditionally and am very concerned for his health and well-being, and
for that of our family. I hope that this incident will encourage Jason
to seek the professional help [he needs].”

Did Jason abuse a pet? Set up a hidden video camera in a Starbucks
restroom? Get caught autoerotic-asphyxiating with a gay male prostitute?
No. Jason Cantrell was talking to some cops in the courtroom where he
works and when he went to pull something out of his pocket, a joint fell
out. A single marijuana cigarette.

Jason was led out of the courtroom, cited by police, suspended
without pay and eventually forced to resign from his city attorney job,
which he's held for the past 17 years. Over a single marijuana
cigarette.

So Jason Cantrell, public servant, like millions of other decent
hardworking Americans, chooses to unwind with a benign plant rather than
a glass of hard liquor. Fine, Jason, but now that we know about it,
your life as you know it has to be over. We "encourage you to seek the
professional help you need."

When the prosecutors themselves have loose joints dropping out of
their pockets, isn't it clear that criminalizing people and destroying
their careers over how they choose to change their headspace is a
twisted, immoral disgrace?

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Americans are willfully ignorant. If you give any credence to science
whatsoever, you know global warming is happening. If you have eyes and
nerve endings, you can see it and feel it. And yet, we somehow dismiss
this crisis, this global emergency, as something we'll either think our
way out of or Jesus will take care of. But what if Jesus' way of taking
care of it is to slowly turn up the thermostat until we take a hint and
get off our asses?

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 65 percent of America's mainland is experiencing some form of drought. In Michigan, hay has gotten so expensive people are abandoning their horses. In Colorado, Parks and Wildlife officials have had to destroy 30 "nuisance" bears because they've encroached on populated areas looking for food. In Missouri, over-dry soil is shifting,
causing homes to crumble and crack. In New Mexico, ranchers are cutting
their neighbors' fences so their cattle can graze. In Texas, water is
so scarce Rick Perry’s been forced to grind up and snort his
painkillers.

The U.S.
Drought Monitor is produced in partnership between the National Drought
Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United
States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. Map courtesy of NDMC-UNL.

"Droughts, floods, hurricanes and other extreme weather cost the
U.S. economy at least $55 billion in 2011, according to NOAA, with 14
separate events exceeding $1 billion. The devastating drought and
associated wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma alone cost American crop
farmers $7.6 billion and the cotton and cattle industries around $5.4
billion."

There's a real, measurable economic cost. You'd think, for no other
reason, greed would compel us to adjust how we live and make money in a
way that would allow us to, well, continue to live and make money.

Following
are quotables from “Real Time with Bill Maher” for Friday, October 20,
2012. “Real Time with Bill Maher” airs Fridays at 10:00PM ET (10:00PM
PT, tape delayed) on HBO, with additional replays throughout the week on
HBO and HBO 2.

This week’s format was a little different. Frist off, there were two debaters. - Bill Maher in his opening monologue regarding the second Presidential candidate debate

He
said he had binders of women made up. But first of all, who else keeps
binders of women? Serial killers. Every serial killer movie, the cops
bust into the serial killer’s lair and what do they find? Binders of
women…and then they open the freezer and a head falls out. - Bill Maher in his opening monologue regarding Romnye’s gaffe

The
Mormons had good news today. Billy Graham, who is 112, has taken
Mormonism off his website’s list of cults. This is typical of Christian
right’s stance on Mitt Romeny. They still believe he will go to Hell for
all eternity but in this life, they’d like a tax cut. - Bill Maher in his opening monologue

These
are rights that are held in fifty other nations around the world. Even
really progressive countries like Russia and China have mandatory
labeling. - Gary Hirshberg on Prop 37

We don’t have elections anymore, we have sales.- Gary Hirshberg on elections

It
doesn’t matter who said what after those people died. What matters is
why wasn’t there enough protection on September 11, 2012?- Boris Epshetyn on the attack on the US Embassy in Libya

That is what Mitt Romney represents. He is a kinder, gentler version of Gordon Gekko. - Matt Taibbi

Most of the people who will be disenfranchised are black, Latino, young people; basically anyone that can dance. - Bill Maher on voter fraud laws

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

There's been a lot of talk about the Obama administration's drone
policy -- the one that was denied for years but now is begrudgingly
acknowledged with the insistence that there have been no "conclusive"
civilian casualties. Isn't America wonderful, developing an unmanned
robotic plane that can shoot missiles into populated areas and kill only
the bad guys? Why, it sounds almost too good to be true.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
reports that the zero civilian casualty count claimed by the Obama
administration is a little, let’s say, hopeful -- the number is more
likely between 474-884 killed in Pakistan alone since 2004 -- with over a
thousand more people injured.

And a Stanford/NYU report says our drone strikes have had a "damaging and counter-productive effect" and have likely resulted in civilian Pakistanis being less likely to help us find and eliminate terrorists.

In a recent poll, three out of every four Pakistanis said they now
consider the United States an enemy. The other one out of four
recognized the pollster as American and cut off his head. And who can
blame them? Imagine living under the constant threat of imminent demise
-- like that new sitcom about men with babies.

The study says,

"Drones hover 24 hours a day over communities in northwest
Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles and public spaces without warning…
Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly
strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are
powerless to protect themselves."

You may argue that waging war with machines where you get to kill the
enemy and anyone standing near them without bodily risk to yourself is
immoral. But so is terrorism. On the other hand, are we just repeatedly
whacking the beehive with a stick and creating more enemies who want to
sting?

In 2010, Japanese baseball phenom Tsuyoshi Nishioka was the Nippon
League batting champion, hitting .346. The guy could really drive the
ball… despite what you've heard about Asian drivers. He also won the
Japanese equivalent of a Golden Glove for his defensive play as an
infielder. In 2011, Tsuyoshi was signed by the Minnesota Twins to a
three-year $9.25 million deal. Six games into his rookie season,
Tsuyoshi had a collision at second base with Nick Swisher of the
Yankees, breaking Tsuyoshi’s leg. And he’s never played up to his
potential since.

After his injury, Tsuyoshi batted only .226 and committed 12 errors
in 68 games… or what the Chicago Cubs call "a career season." This
season, the Twins sent Tsuyoshi down to Rochester, their AAA team, where
he hit .258 with only two homeruns and 34 RBI’s in 392 at-bats. So,
with $3.25 million left to pay on his contract, the Twins are kind of
stuck with Tsuyoshi, right? Well, they would be if he were an American
player. But Tsuyoshi isn’t American. He doesn’t come from a greed
culture. He issued this statement:

"I would like to thank the Twins organization for helping me
fulfill my dream of playing in Major League Baseball. I take full
responsibility for my performance, which was below my own expectations.
At this time, I have made the decision that it is time to part ways. I
have no regrets and know that only through struggle can a person grow
stronger. I appreciate all the support the team and the fans in
Minnesota and Rochester have shown me."

And then Tsuyoshi Nishioka did something amazing. He voluntarily
forfeited his right to the $3 million-plus still owed him and entered
the free agent market. He couldn't bring himself to take money he felt
he hadn't earned.

Could you imagine an American player doing this? And wouldn't it have
been nice to see a little of this attitude from our greedy Wall Street
execs after they dropped the ball and nearly bankrupted our country?

Friday, October 12, 2012

New Rule: Network news has to be renamed "Cool Video
We Think You’ll Watch." Not long ago, Fox News was showing a live
police chase of a stolen car in Phoenix and the suspect pulled over, got
out of the car and shot himself in the head. Or as the Fox anchor
called it, "Exercising his Second-Amendment rights." There were
apologies all around for the "insensitive" and "wrong" airing of a live
suicide. But what about the bigger question? What's a national "news"
network doing showing a local police chase?

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Paul Ryan couldn't explain
his tax plan to Chris Wallace because "It would take me too long to go
through all of the math." It's not the first time Ryan has had trouble
trying to explain his plans and it raises an important question: is Paul
Ryan a policy wonk, or does he just play one on TV?

The record suggests he just plays one on TV. He has a bachelor's
degree in political science and economics. That's all. He's not a
trained economist and wouldn't be qualified to teach a graduate level
economics course. Most economists take him about as seriously as they do
his idol, Ayn Rand.

The only people who have tagged him as a brilliant economist are
journalists who aren't economists themselves and other Republicans. Why
does everyone take it as a given that he's a wonk? How would they even
know? He lies about everything else; doesn't it make sense that he’s
lying about that, too?

I notice any time Ryan gets into trouble explaining economic issues,
he starts using the word "baseline" a lot. It's not really that
complicated of a word, but I think it's meant to scare people off, like,
"Don’t mess with me, I'll start talking about baselines." To me, it
just smacks of a guy who's trying too hard. And it's meant to end the
conversation before someone who does know what they're talking about
discovers he has no idea.

Ryan once told The Weekly Standard that meeting with budget
actuaries was "the highlight of my day." Again, trying too hard. The
reporter bought that. I don't. And is someone who enjoys talking to
actuaries that much really qualified to be vice president?

Romney's awfulness as a candidate is obscuring how awful Ryan is. Look at that footage
of him being booed at the AARP -- seniors don't just dislike his plan,
they think he's a condescending little prick. If you thought Al Gore
talked down to people, listen to Paul Ryan for five minutes. The
difference is, Gore wasn't pretending -- he really did know shit.

The polls also suggest that the real disaster on the Romney/Ryan
ticket might be Ryan. Around the time Ryan was picked for VP, Romney was
up among seniors in Florida and Ohio; now Obama has the edge. Along
with Democrats solidifying their support, the improvement with seniors
is the biggest reason Obama has risen. Don't you think Ryan has
something to do with that?

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Following
are quotables from “Real Time with Bill Maher” for Friday, October 6,
2012. “Real Time with Bill Maher” airs Fridays at 10:00PM ET (10:00PM
PT, tape delayed) on HBO, with additional replays throughout the week on
HBO and HBO 2.

New job numbers came out today…unemployment went
way down from 8 percent to 7.8 percent. Of course, a lot of this was
because of the ever expanding industry of Mitt Romney fact checkers.
- Bill Maher in his opening monologue

Now we know what Romney looks like when he is all charged up. And now we know what Michael Jackson looks like on diprivan.
- Bill Maher in his opening monologue regarding Obama’s performance at the Presidential debate

I have not seen a black man that disinterested and annoyed since I dragged Chris Rock to that Beach Boys concert.
- Bill Maher in his opening monologue regarding Obama’s performance at the Presidential debate

You
know what the American people want right now? They don’t want you, they
don’t want me. They just want these guys to work together, cut the
crap, shut the hell up and do your jobs.
- Frank Luntz

Congress has a 10 percent approval rating. Gaddafi had a 14 percent approval rating and that was from the people who killed him.
- Frank Luntz

Mitt
Romney has just been practicing for a year and a half. That’s what he’s
been doing in the primaries…Barack Obama has been running a country.
- Kerry Washington

You can’t look presidential when you’re just saying lies.
- Kerry Washington on Mitt Romney at the Presidential debate

I
think he doesn’t care anything about ideology…he’ll do whatever; the
Tea Party, the Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives. He just wants to
establish that Mormons are part of the mainstream of this country; he
wants to be the first Mormon president.
- Bill Maher on Mitt Romney

I
tend to think of the government is best symbolized by the DMV. They
don’t run anything very well. To pull off a massive conspiracy theory
like this is totally out of character.
- Will Cain

New
Rule: Before beginning any scientific study, you must first ask ‘does
anyone care about what I am studying?’ Like a recent study revealed that
people who decorate their bedrooms purple have the most active sex
lives. Yes, because only three types of men have purple bedrooms: pimps,
Herman Cain and the Minnesota Vikings.
- Bill Maher in his ‘New Rules’ segment

Thursday, October 4, 2012

When we talk about the conservative bubble, we’re generally talking
about the Fox-Rush-Drudge information bubble, and the people who reside
in it. This is the information loop that allows any willing right-winger
to live in a world where the opinions they already are the only ones
that get recited back to them, and the opinions they will one day have
get fed to them so they can later recite them and hear them being
recited back again, and around and around we go, all without any having
to hear any opposing viewpoints expressed beyond – possibly – those of
tokens like Kirsten Powers and that old school Irish Dem who
periodically loses it and tells Sean Hannity to go fuck himself. I think
his name is Bob Beckel or something. And I’d like his job some day.

If you’re a conservative, wherever you turn, the bubble is there. If
you want to get your news on TV, you have Fox. If you’re the type who
frequents talk radio, there’s Rush, along with a dozen other Rush
clones. If you want to get your news online, you get all the links you
want to read assembled for you by Matt Drudge, complete with misleading
headlines, bad pictures of Hillary Clinton and Michele Obama, and a
smattering of racism. Anywhere a Republican wants to turn for news,
there’s a friendly face. And by “friendly” I mean the “smiling veneer
over the contemptible inner core.”

But there was always one hole in the bubble that continued to let in
the air of reality: polling information. As in, surveys that measure
what Americans actually believe, or who they plan on voting for, or what
they think of ideas like privatizing Social Security, etc. Because
wingnuts can go for months and not talk to anyone who doesn’t think
Obama is a bigger threat to America than Al Qaeda with airborne AIDS,
but that’s because they live in rural Tennessee, and inside the
information bubble.

Polling information, on the other hand, when done correctly, comes
from a representative sample of everyone. What’s more, polls are often
widely reported, mostly because it’s an easy article to write. Even if
you do your best to live only in the Fox-Rush-Drudge information world,
you’re still going to get information about what people outside the
bubble think through polling data. And it can be very disconcerting for
Republicans, finding out that millions of other Americans exist in the
“not real America” and think they’re completely batshit.

Thankfully, Republicans now seem to have solved this problem. Enter
Scott Rasmussen. He’s a Republican and a pollster. And a few years ago,
it seemed Scott ran his polling outfit the way everyone else did. But
somewhere along the line – and I’m guessing here – Scott saw which way
the media winds were blowing and realized there was a new way to
distinguish yourself in the world of political news: by taking a side.

You see, polls, when done accurately, have a way of creating a
narrative about what people actually want or think, or what may
eventually happen. And this narrative is largely immune from the
partisans on either side because, well, it just is. Because
polls are the temperature of reality. If your candidate is down 8 points
in a poll a few weeks out before the election, the story starts
becoming about how you’re going to lose, and how everyone knows it, and
how you might as well stay home on election day because it’s hopeless.
Which is effective, or harmful, depending on which side you’re on.
Because lots of people are looking for an excuse not to vote anyway and
“My Candidate is down 9 points as of yesterday” is a pretty good one.

These narratives are particularly dangerous for Republicans. And
that’s where Rasmussen polling comes in. By designing his to polls to
lean Republican, he allows Republicans inside the bubble to continue
breathing the air inside the bubble. Ex: When other polls show Obama
pulling away from Romney, release a poll that says he isn’t:

Mission accomplished.

You see, now when people inside the bubble get confronted with what
people think outside they bubble you can say, “No, according to a poll
out today, they don’t think that!” Narrative averted! Thanks, Scott
Rasmussen!

There’s only one problem with this, of course. And that’s that the
bubble has now plugged its leak. Remaining contact with the outside
world is even more limited. Republicans now not only have their own
information loop, but their own polling company to deny what everyone
outside the bubble thinks, too.

I'll say this on their behalf: all of those tax loopholes that they
pretend they want to close in order to make their tax plan work -- but
won't name before the election, and probably won't close anyway after
the election, assuming they won -- probably should be closed. They're
all things most economists agree are inefficiencies that distort the
market and we’d be better off without them.

Here's the thing: you can rarely get rid of any benefit the
government gives to its citizens. Whether it's farm subsidies or home
mortgage deductions or Medicare prescription drug benefits that aren't
paid for or defense contracts, once they're given, they're almost never
rescinded. And they add up.

But at least they're talking about closing them (while not talking
about closing them). It's slightly more than the Democrats do.

Approximately 62% of Utah is Mormon, compared to less than 2%
nationally. But it's one of only four religions in the US that are
actually growing, and if you need to see what life will be like in the
United States of Mormonism, Utah's a great place to start.

Utah is not a theocracy. It's just a place where the centralized
Church has a huge amount of influence, laws are passed that reflect the
Church's values, and no politician can ever do anything that would
really anger the Church. But the government isn't literally run by the
Church. It just trembles in its shadow.

This comes out in the liquor laws, which are about as repressive as you can get. The Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control
has run the show since 1935, and the state has a monopoly on the sale
of certain liquors. For instance, beer that has over 3.2% alcohol
content (which includes many, many popular beers) can only be sold at
State Liquor Stores. You want a Sierra Nevada? You can buy that from the
government. That's right, socialism, right out in the open!

Pornography is restricted in Utah as well. According to the Attorney
General's website, it is illegal to distribute, transport, transmit,
produce, broadcast, or mail pornographic material. Also, all semen that
results from use of pornography must be saved, tagged, registered,
baptized, and then stored in a cold vault beneath the Salt Lake Temple.

Sodomy? Not in Utah, gay or otherwise, until 2003, when the federal
government struck down all sodomy laws. Utah's law has it as a
misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1000 fine. And
it's still on the books.
You might say that it's an arcane regulation that hasn't been touched
because it just doesn't matter anymore, but in point of fact a gay state
senator named Scott McCoy tried to get it off the books in 2007 with
his creatively titled "Sodomy Amendments." The bill failed without
consideration.

Utah also gives married parents preference in matters of adoption.
Which, because gays can't get married in Utah, nor can they get their
marriages recognized, means "Sorry, homos, no baby for you!"

The bottom line is that no matter how much the LDS and Mitt Romney
mouth the word "freedom," the United States of Mormonism would be a much
less free place than the country we're living in now. But it would be
so clean and nice that nobody would care.

"We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country. We will never have the elite, smart people on our side."

Explains a lot. They're not just traditionalists. They're
Cro-Magnons. With the simple values that made this country great: It
light outside? Go look for food. It dark? Cower. Maybe fuck something,
see if baby come out.

Santorum then added, "So our colleges and universities, they're not going to be on our side."
He explained how the church is one of the only institutions that can be
counted on to sustain "the basic premise of America." The basic
premise, which, if I'm not mistaken, was partly "Let's get the fucking
church off our backs."

Those smart people, always a-plottin' and a-plannin' against us. That's why we need to elect more mouth-breathing dumbasses!

In Illinois last Thursday, an 18 year-old jihadist named Adel Daoud
was indicted by a federal grand jury over his plan to detonate a car
bomb in downtown Chicago.

We were never in danger. It was a sting operation, of course. Adel
has been monitored by the FBI for at least a year because he was posting
stuff on the web about jihad. In May, agents began corresponding with
him, posing as fellow jihadists. Daoud and an undercover agent met,
drove downtown in a car that was "rigged" with "explosives," engaged in a
quick prayer, and walked into a nearby alley. When Adel pulled the
trigger, his buddy arrested him.

Adel isn't a dumb kid. In fact, one of his heartbroken neighbors
described him as "intelligent, kind and a whiz with computers." But
computers are exactly the problem for any new crop of American
jihadists: Anyone who would make a good terrorist is essentially a kid,
and kids communicate by cell phone and Facebook and websites... which
are the easiest stuff to monitor. If an American Islamist movement were
to succeed, they'd need to get the kids back into caves. Where they'll
never go, because the cell service is terrible down there.